Wednesday, 17 April 2013

Yarraville Community Garden Consultation

You may have received a flyer in the mail from council asking for your opinion on a community garden in Yarraville.

Lots of people have asked what the Good Seed's opinion is so here is a some snippets of our submission to council:

The Good Seeds preferred site out of the three options presented
by MCC is McNish Reserve. The site is ideal to
establish a flagship community garden for the southern section of Maribyrnong
LGA. The site is highly accessible with two sections of its perimeter being
non-residential. A community garden at McNish would enhance the social fabric
of the local community by activating the site and increasing its visual amenity
to what is currently an under-utilised space. The large size of the site means that
many individuals and community groups could benefit from the development of a
community hub and garden. The size of the site would also enable the delivery
of local community events, workshops, gatherings and farmers market. As such
McNish Reserve has the potential to be a very inclusive community hub. The site
also has a sunny aspect enabling the potential for great food production.

Manallack Reserve is within ~350 m
of the Victoria University Urban Living and Learning Hub which has an
established orchard, shared food growing areas and individual plots. This site currently
has community involvement in the form of volunteers and has capacity for
increased future involvement. We feel that Manallack Reserve would exclusively serve
its local community but would not have the capacity for a flagship garden. This is because the site doesn’t have the
potential to accommodate activities that would attract community involvement
from further afield including; a playground, market and workshops.

The features and activities that The Goods Seeds believe would make
a community garden successful include:

· -Food and green waste management systems such as community
composting.

The Good Seeds are a group of residents living in the city of Maribyrnong who have formed a working group to advocate for the establishment of more community gardens. Our membership includes families, community workers and environmental professionals, members of Permaculture Out West (POW), Friends of Stony Creek, members of fruit and vegetable collectives and Urban Harvest Swap Meets . Currently we have over 50 people on our database!
Feel free to contact us at:
goodseeds.garden@gmail.com